The SpaceX-10 crew counts to start at the international space station on Friday afternoon. (Credit: NASA)
A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts to the international space station Sunday Sunday to allow a pair of stuck astronauts from NASA to return to earth.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams of NASA will be able to return home after nine months on a mission which was to last only one week after a launch on the first flight of Boeing astronaut which was confronted with problems, which prompted NASA to bring the starlinener empty.
The dragon capsule of the crew of the crew-10 astronauts moored at the station at 12:04 p.m. Sunday, around 29 hours after the launch at 7:03 p.m. Friday at Kennedy Space Center in NASA in Florida.
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SpaceX Capsule mooring at the international space station on Sunday March 16, 2025. (NASA)
The four new arrivals representing the United States, Japan and Russia will spend the coming days to discover the Wilmore and Williams station. The four – astronauts from NASA Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, the Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi Onishi and the Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov – should stay at the station for about six months.
Later this week, Wilmore and Williams will enter their own SpaceX capsule which has been up there since last year to close a mission that started last June.
Wilmore and Williams are expected to leave the station on Wednesday at 4 a.m. on Wednesday, as well as the NASA astronaut Nick Hague and the Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, before splashing off the coast of Florida.
The Hague and Gorbunov flew to the station in September on a crew dragon capsule with two empty seats for Wilmore and Williams. This plane has been attached to the station since their arrival.
The crew members of the NASA SpaceX-10 crew, Nichole Pilot Ayers and Commander Anne MCCLAIN, specialist in the American mission and the Cosmonaut mission, Kirill Peskov de Roscosmos de Russia, Friday, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)
The stuck astronauts have done scientific research and carried out routine maintenance.
Williams told journalists earlier this month that she was looking forward to going home to see her family and two dogs.
“It was a roller coaster for them, probably a little more than for us,” she said.
The former NASA astronaut, Leroy Chiao, spoke during an appearance on the Fox News channel about the arrival of Crew-10, which, according to him, went well.
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The specialist in the Cosmonaut mission of SpaceX Crew-10 of NASA, Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos, Russia, Pilot Nichole Ayers and Commander Anne McClain, the United States specialist and the mission specialist, Takuya Onishi, from Jaxa in Japan, Friday, March 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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“It’s not like the films. You are not only somehow at the quay and then open the tops … It will take a while to make all the escape checks, leave everything to the thermal balance to ensure that all pressure fluctuations are only due to temperature changes,” he said. “And then they will open the listening and the crew-10 will be welcomed on board and everyone will celebrate.”
“So it looks like a completely impeccable and successful mission so far,” he continued. “And of course, Sunny and Butch are looking forward to, you know, taking them, transferring and then getting into their spacecraft with their crew and returning to earth in the coming days.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
